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In recent years, countries around the world have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to widespread implementation of measures like home isolation and city lockdowns to contain the spread of the virus. These measures have had a profound impact on human learning, work, and lifestyles. Schools and businesses have increasingly adopted remote learning and telecommuting practices. Simultaneously, the global semiconductor industry has faced capacity shortages due to the pandemic, resulting in a global shortage of chips and triggering significant growth in the semiconductor market from 2021 to 2022.
In this era of the pandemic, with semiconductor productivity shortages prevailing, the saying "those who control productivity and quality prevail" has become crucial. Therefore, balancing productivity while ensuring quality has become a critical challenge that needs urgent resolution.
This article will use a certain semiconductor wafer foundry as an example to explore the issues of insufficient equipment numbers over the long term and recent problems with capacity and quality. The main objectives of the study are to address the following two key issues: 1) Current productivity is approximately 67%, with a goal to increase it to 83%; 2) Defect rate is as high as 32%, aiming to reduce it to less than 8%, and the average number of defects is 7.56ea, with a goal to reduce it to less than 2ea. These issues frequently become bottlenecks in the production line.
To address these issues, this article will employ the QC Story method for process improvement. This method will help identify the real problems and root causes, complemented by the PDCA cycle for thorough analysis and verification. Specific improvement strategies will include optimizing equipment maintenance procedures, enhancing machine performance, and upgrading tools. The expected outcomes are as follows: (1) Increase productivity to 83%, exceeding by over 15%; (2) Reduce defect failure rate to less than 8% and bring the average number of defects per unit down to below 2ea, thereby minimizing equipment-related defects; (3) Enhance overall machine stability to reduce false alarms to less than 80 per month. Improve the repair capability of the team to shorten maintenance time.
The ultimate goal of these improvement measures is to significantly enhance both productivity utilization and quality, thereby meeting the goals set by the company and satisfying customer requirements. Additionally, these improvements will be shared with partner factories for mutual benefit and knowledge sharing.
Keywords: Semiconductor, False alarm, QC Story
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